Finding a Hot Topic (without emo teenagers)
I was recently asked to join the ExpertSEM blog as a guest writer. Eager to prove myself, I wanted to find the coolest, most relevant topic to offer an awesome post that would blow minds. After about an hour, I was feeling lost and disappointed. How could I find the most important topics plaguing the minds of my fellow online marketers? I mean…I hit up the usual venues…Digg, popurls, Sphinn – I just wasn’t finding what I needed. I was just about to set it all aside until I came across this post: 6 Spicy Ways to Use Hot Topics & Trends to Explode Your Traffic; the second part of a series on how to discover trends and use them effectively.
First – let’s quickly review the author’s suggestions on how to find the ‘hot topics’:
• Social Media & Networking Sites – I was right in heading to the social media sites first – twitter is being hailed lately as the ‘future of search.’ Of course you should search the trendiest site for the latest trends!
• Search Engine Data – Tools like Google Trends, the Google Adwords Keyword Tool, Wordtracker, Keyword Discovery and Yahoo! Buzz Index allow you to see data on frequently searched keywords and provides information on what is hitting when and where.
• E-commerce Sites – Amazon Best Sellers and eBay Pulse will help you stay in tune with the hottest products, especially useful for e-commerce sites or affiliate marketers.
So now that we know where to search the latest topics and trends – what use is it? The author shares six strategies of how using hot topics can keep your business relevant and increase traffic.
1. Buzz worthy keywords in your content = increased search frequency
Create content around hot topics within your site’s niche – i.e. if you run a tech blog, stay relevant by posting how this year the NCAA March Madness games are available online.
2. Participate in the social media-sphere
Just think, that’s where you are going for hot topics, so make yourself one by writing articles/postings that appeal to your target audience and promote it within your social circle.
3. Develop new ideas
Not only can you improve your existing sites, monitoring trends might just be able to help you figure out the ‘next best thing.’
4. Snag some good real estate
Monitoring trends can help you keep track of soon-to-hit exact match domains. Grab up the primo domains and someone could be offering you big bucks for doing nothing.
5. Supply in Demand
E-commerce or affiliate marketing sites can benefit big time by paying attention to hot selling items and following suit.
6. Market (Re)search
At the very least, tracking hot topics and trends will help you gain more knowledge on your industry and stay in tune with the environment; allowing you to keep an eye on the competition and strength of the market.
How do you stay up on the hottest topics and trends? What do you do with that information? Comment and let me know what you think!
~Lindsey
on March 31st, 2009 at 2:33 pm
I hadn’t really thought of the e-commerce sites, which could be very useful for some upcoming projects.
For me, Twitter really is a great tool for monitoring trends (and I promised myself I wouldn’t say “Twitter” this week). Once you follow the right people, all the content comes to you. But then again, I am in social media so the content is abundant on “the micro-blogging site that shall not be named”
Oh, and I love the name of the post!
on March 31st, 2009 at 3:46 pm
The really cool things about social media is that you don’t have to try to hard to find interesting topics. Like Tarla said, if you follow the right people in your field you will most likely have all the info you will ever need (and some you will wish you never knew).
With every new social media comes a billion apps that make searching and trending much easier so even if you aren’t following the right people, you still have access to their knowledge.